Skiing though an aspen glade on Powder Mountain in Utah. Photo / Alex Robertson
Skiing though an aspen glade on Powder Mountain in Utah. Photo / Alex Robertson
Alex Robertson takes on the pistes and glades of Powder Mountain near Ogden in Utah.
Pow Mow's the only upside-down mountain I can think of," Rich Koski, of Visit Utah and my host for the day, said as we set off on our journey from Snowbasin.
Upside down? Is it flat at the top and pointy on the bottom? I thought to myself.
"In that you drive to the top of the hill, ski down and you lift or bus back to the car," he added after a while.
"There's not much accommodation at the resort, so people tend to stay here in Huntsville."
"Otherwise they'll stay in Ogden, just 15 miles down the road. It only takes a half hour to either Snowbasin or Powder Mountain."
The road started to twist as we climbed out of the Ogden Valley. The terrain narrowed and steepened, with trees lining each side of the road.
"These are excellent glades to ski through. It's mostly aspen here, but we have Douglas fir, too.
"You stop here on the road and the bus will swing by and take you back up the hill."
We rounded a hairpin and some houses sat up on the hill above us. "Here are some private houses, but there's not many. And that's the Timberline Lodge - we're about halfway up - and the yurt is the adventure centre where you can book snowcat expeditions and guides."
He pointed to a round tent-like structure on the roadside.
"There's some awesome off-trail powder to catch on those 'cat trips. You go for a whole day through bowls and chutes of pure powder and they'll throw in lunch."
We carried on up the road, which straightened and then swung around one final bend.
The landscape opened up - we were on a small plateau way above the surrounding hills. A few higher peaks popped up in the distance.
Another couple of yurts appeared, one with a chimney and both with windows and privacy glass.
"That's the owners' private hangout. There's about 50 investors, mostly young with money from IT or whatever. They bought the resort from a company that had grand ideas for the place back in about 2006 to build 2000 condos and upscale the resort. The locals objected and dug their heels in. And then the GFC hit and the whole plan went out the window.
"These young guys - they're called the Summit Group - someone labelled them Davos for Dudes 'cos they have pow-wows up here with TED speakers and the like. They're more focused on a sustainable future. There's a lot of pressure to keep environmentally friendly these days."
Rich edged the car over to an old wooden two-storey building.
"And this is the top. We'll get our gear on in there," he said, pointing to the lodge. "We'll just take it easy first, down White Pine."
Snowcat expedition on Powder Mountain near Ogden, Utah. Photo / Supplied, Powder Mountain
Rich slipped down the wide, groomed run in elegant long curves. It took some effort to keep up until I realised that I was skiing tight turns down the middle of the piste, braking my momentum, as I'm used to doing on Ruapehu's narrow trails.
The field was completely empty apart from Rich and myself. At the bottom I passed a couple of boarders sitting back, chatting.
We skied straight on to the Hidden Lake Express quad and were soon back to the top.
"There's over 7000 skiable acres up here. The lifts serve just under half the area. The rest is accessed by snowcat or by the shuttle bus from the bottom.
"Let's go over to Sunrise. It's a nice little easy run."
We slid along a flat area, the tree-lined pistes to the left and wide-open, rolling snow-covered terrain to the right.
"I love cutting through the powder through these trees," Rich said. "They get about 500 inches [13m] of snow in a season and it's pure powder. We're quite high up here - nine-and-a-half-thousand feet [2900m] at the top - so it's drier. The snow doesn't melt much so we don't get refreeze."
A Yosemite Sam look-alike was shovelling snow on to the loading area of a Pommer lift.
"Hey. Not long 'til you're done?" Rich called out to him.
"Three weeks 'til the season closes and I'm headin' off on my bike. But I'll be back next season," the man replied, his moustache wagging up and down.
He cackled as first Rich, and then I glided silently up the slope.
"Over there's Cobabe Canyon," Rich pointed straight ahead at yet another vast vista of valley, snow and trees. "You really need the snowcat to get over there.
"It's named after the Cobabe family that first acquired the land over a century ago, for sheep farming mostly. It was Doc Cobabe - he was the oldest graduate from the Utah Medicine School aged 45 in the 1950s - that started the ski resort after someone suggested it while they were horse riding.
"And the rest, as they say, is history. Now they have some of the best powder runs on the planet, terrain parks with international competitions and fat bike races - pretty much everything you want."
Rich popped off the lip to start his run down Sunrise and I hung back just enough that I had to schuss straight down to catch him up; crouched in full race mode, the roar of the wind against my ears breaking the silence.
Rich was waiting for me and I skidded to a stop. A huge grin spread across his face.
"That looked like fun," he said. "Want to do it again?"
CHECKLIST
Getting there: Hawaiian Airlines flies from Auckland to Los Angeles via Honolulu three times a week. From LA a local carrier will connect you to Salt Lake City in Utah.
